Nothing Provokes the Milk of Human Kindness Like a Death

The famed Croc Hunter, a world-renowned reptile expert and TV conservationist - with the trademark exclamation “Crikey!” - was filming a segment for a new series, “Ocean’s Deadliest."

Despite his reputation for getting in wild beasts’ faces, Irwin’s death surprised many experts.

“Stingrays are a very gentle group of animals and are not prone to aggressive behavior,” said Steve Bailey, curator of fishes at the New England Aquarium in Boston and himself an expert on stingrays.

Simon Pierce of Queensland University’s School of Biological Sciences said there were no accurate records of stingray deaths, but estimated there had been about 30 worldwide in recent years.

Witnesses said Irwin was struck directly in the heart.

“It was extraordinarily bad luck,” said Shaun Collin, a University of Queensland marine neuroscientist. “It’s not easy to get spined by a stingray, and to be killed by one is very rare.

"But you go around sticking your fingers in cloacals," Collin didn't add, "and creatures are going to get jumpy around you."

. . .Visitors at the New England Aquarium were stunned by the news. . . .

“He kind of lived life on the edge. It’s not terribly surprising. It’s almost like he died in the line of duty,” said Heather Randl, 33, who said she felt that Irwin’s death was poetic, before rambling off on a tangent about the thin, leopard-spotted line dividing civilization from animal chaos.

Another aquarium visitor, Colin Grubel, 29, who described himself as a former zookeeper (because no one else would, as a dust bunny, a plastic hippo, and a dead cockroach postitioned on the veldt of the pool table in your parents' basement isn't really a zoo), said he wouldn’t miss the wild man from Down Under.

“I’m not surprised. The kinds of things he’d do to animals were dumb. He persistently harassed poisonous snakes and other dangerous animals,” Grubel said.

Admittedly, my grieving process is different from most.